French Fury as Sarkozy Intervenes on Syria

LONDON — He’s back! Just three months after being put out of office by the French electorate, Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked a political firestorm by criticizing his successor’s Syria policy.

The former president, famous for his hyperactivity, in defiance of the convention that retired leaders should be seen but not heard, issued a statement on Wednesday calling for foreign intervention to prevent further massacres by the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Insisting that the Syrian and Libyan cases were not the same, Mr. Fabius told the daily Le Parisien: “I’m amazed that Mr. Sarkozy should want to create a controversy on such a serious subject. You expect better of a former president.

“Could it be — but it’s too absurd — that he doesn’t want to be forgotten?” Mr. Fabius asked himself.

Mr. Sarkozy was supposed to be taking it easy this week, vacationing in the south of France just six miles away from President Hollande. Mr. Hollande had promised to greet his predecessor if their paths crossed.

There seemed little chance of that, since Mr. Sarkozy has been busy on the telephone, including a call to Abdulbaset Sieda, the head of the Syrian opposition on Tuesday. The two men later issued a joint statement “on the seriousness of the Syrian crisis as well as the need for rapid action by the international community to avoid massacres.”

If Mr. Sarkozy has indeed broken an unwritten rule of democratic politics, his intervention raises the question of just how far departed leaders should go in pronouncing on issues of the day.

Some world leaders embrace retirement with grace.

Even critics of George W. Bush would agree that nothing suited the former president so much as the manner of his leaving. He returned quietly to his Texas home, only re-emerging on the national stage to help the disaster relief effort after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Others have taken on elder statesman roles, establishing foundations that pursue noble but uncontroversial goals such as eradicating poverty and bringing about world peace.

Jimmy Carter, denied a second term as U.S. president in 1980, is still at it, at the age of 87, “waging peace, fighting disease, building hope” as head of the Carter Center.

Tony Blair bowed out after a decade as Britain’s prime minister to assume the role of international envoy responsible for bringing peace to the Middle East — an ongoing enterprise.

Mr. Sarkozy’s intervention on Syria may indicate he is finding the switch more difficult than most. In five years as president, he exhausted aides, reporters and fellow world leaders during a whirlwind of travel that included 360 domestic visits and 180 trips abroad.

In speaking out on Syria, the ex-president was actually following a path worn by lesser conservative politicians in France who have criticized the Hollande team’s lack of action.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French philosopher who claims to have inspired Mr. Sarkozy to intervene against Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, has also said he was disappointed about Mr. Hollande’s perceived inaction on Syria.

Mr. Lévy is free to express whatever view he likes. But is it right for a leader so recently departed, such as Mr. Sarkozy, to intervene in the government’s affairs?

Jean-Michel Demetz at L’Express was among those who thought not, although he acknowledged: “Ah, how difficult it must be to enjoy an early retirement at 57 when you’re hyperactive by nature and the public has let you down.”